Loosing Paprika
by Ana Morada
Summary: Lily tries to deny her budding affections for James Potter, and also has an encounter with her bizarre roomate.


Disclaimer: I do not own James, Lily, Petunia, or Vernon Dursley.

Claimer: Rowena is totally mine, so, keep your sticky paws off her.

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**There was never any mail for her. 

Lily Evans stood with her back to the window, rich curls that clung tightly to a rosy red color pulled back into a messy ponytail. She was looking down at the wooden sill with a tight-lipped frown, her forehead wrinkling in exasperation as she ruffled through the letters yet again. There were five, and not one bore her name. All of them belonged to Rowena, who'd been sharing an owl with her for three months. Sighing heavily, she plopped them down onto the permanently scratched table in front of her four-poster, not knowing why it surprised her.

Who'd she expect to hear from, anyway?

Her mother and father were busy with other things nowadays, what with that new German Shepherd her father had insisted on bringing home from the pound, and their expensive racecar they'd bought on whim. And Petunia, the irritating prude, was off dating her new boyfriend Vernon Dursley. Ugh, what a horrible name! For a moment Lily stared blankly out the near window, the pains crisscrossing attractively over the inky blackness of the Hogwarts grounds below. Yes, Petunia had managed to find and woo the single most plain, unattractive creature to cuddle up with, and Lily was the one without so much as a civil conversation with James.

Just the thought of him made her cringe, yet she couldn't ignore the slight leap in her stomach that told her something was amiss in her ritual hatred of her peer and main competitor. Yes, James was competition, and not the healthy kind. For years she'd been forced to see him in the mornings, sitting down the table from her surrounded by groupies and his usual crowd of friends. The Fantastic Four, they were called, and James was the ringleader. How often had she seen him scrubbing his head with his pale knuckles, grinning broadly at a joke he told and looking so utterly smug it made her sick.

She reflected that it wouldn't be as bad if he wasn't so sure of himself, so confident in his perfection that nothing could puncture that overgrown ego he sported, yet he was fated to be cocky and adored for it. Jet black hair, swept away and crisp with the freshness of the wind, eyes the color of a faded afternoon sky and swirled with dusky gray; Firm jaw line as strict as the Whomping Willow he so often boasted about when he thought she wasn't listening, lips that jeered as well as frowned. He was versatile in his emotions, pale and thin, and vertically endowed so that his lithe build seemed to stretch tightly over his muscles, accentuating them tauntingly. He'd grown from an annoying boy to a steadfast, powerful effect on her imagination and interactions. No longer was she able to choose her disgust and whom it was aimed at, for James was not disgusting to her any longer.

Exhaling, she found herself leaning against the cool pane of the glass window, her forehead pressed firmly against one of the grooves and making a red line across the underside of her hairline. Pulling back quickly and flushing, Lily knew she needed a break from a specific member of the Gryffindor House. The back of her throat was fluttering, and she felt distinctly as though someone was tickling the nape of her neck, reaching past the skin and into her mind with soft, sensual motions that twirled brazenly and made her blink in discomfort. She wasn't used to this, and besides that fact, James Potter was the most aggravating creature she'd ever had the misfortune to meet. He was literally the bane of her existence, and she wanted nothing to do with him. Her body, on the other hand, felt differently, and her mind was having a hard time arguing its point.

"Evans, have you seen Paprika anywhere?"

Starting abruptly from a torrent of inappropriate thoughts she'd been aching for all week, she blanched in humiliation at the notion that somehow somebody could read her fantasies and see what embarrassing things were on her mind. Coughing loudly, she snapped to attention and turned swiftly to notice Rowena, shuffling her feet and inching about Lily's bunk in easy indifference.

"Who?"

Rowena stopped in her fiddling of Lily's plush set of matching white pillows and twitched her gaze upwards, icy blue eyes starting at Lily's face and inching down her body in an almost suggestive manner, pausing at her feet and then returning a few seconds later to force eye-contact.

"Nice shoes. What maker are they?"

"I don't know. My mum bought them for me, I think."

Reaching down, Lily tugged a little tighter at the lacy red sash about her waist, hugging loosely to her hipbones around a white school button-down, which was consequently 'buttoned down' a few extra to expose a couple inches past her collar bones. Her shoes were cherry red, with straps that crisscrossed over the tops of her feet. They added an inch and a half to her height, yet Rowena still seemed to have an entire head up on her.

The observant female took a step closer to Lily, her sheet of deepest black hair sliding down the sides of her face like running water. It had literally no volume and lay perfectly flat, framing her eyes eerily and make her tan face seem very much like a predatory thing. At the lack of distance they shared, Rowena seemed to tower like a massive willow tree, Lily a mere child in comparison. Well, Lily was hardly a child, what with her fire-cracker bursts of temper and flaming red personality. But Rowena had always made her uncomfortable, more so now then when they were in groups of people.

"Hmm. Well, _have_ you seen her?"

Rowena's voice was like thick black oil, sticky and low, groaning like a tree in the wind. Shuddering, Lily resisted the urge to take a step back.

"Who, again?"

She did her best to sound irritated, but her voice was almost flimsy in comparison to the sly cunning of her dorm partner. Lily hated being bested by anybody, so she stood up straighter and slanted an eyebrow unkindly, looking almost bored as she crossed her arm and allowed her body to sit at a slant, her right hip jutting outwards in her pinstriped black slacks.

"Paprika."

For a moment Lily pretended to think, then she said back in as sickly sweet as a manner she could,

"I don't think I've seen your cat at all today."

Rowena seemed to consider this, allowing the uncomfortable proximity between them to continue for several seconds before she released a heavy breath that sounded almost staged, shrugged her shoulders, and turned away, her tall intimidating self directed towards another area of the room.

Feeling uniquely misplaced, she stood silently for a few moments before deciding to escape into the common room, afraid of further interaction with this female danger that constantly cornered her at odd times. Stilettos clicking across the stone floor, she pulled open the creaking door and left Rowena behind, descending the stairs in a self-important manner, trying to hide her uneasiness with haughty calm.

After all, she wasn't going to let herself get worked up over something so stupid, right? Right. And she wasn't head over heels in love with James Potter.

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End file.
